Google Fiber in Austin

A few months ago when Google announced they were bringing Google Fiber to Austin, Texas, Time Warner announced they had a side project they had been working on to bring public Wifi spots to Austin. With all the fiber excitement this story was a bit lost, but Time Warner announced plans to increase their production on this project in order to increase their competitiveness. Currently Time Warner has a few dozen up around town, which is free to all Time Warner customers with Time Warner Internet service. At the moment the couple dozen are spread out around town with a focus on areas with heavy foot traffic, (such as downtown, along south Lamar, and Lamar and 38th) with plans to add hundreds more throughout the year! The many hot spots can be located via their website located here or via their app on the Android marketplace or the Apple App Store and a current customer should simply log on with their Time Warner username and password. Now there are always some concerns and precautions when using public WiFi however, even if it is secured. Never browse and access sites in which you would not want people to know, such as banking information; and any ‘work’ done should probably be done through a VPN for an extra level of security. Make sure you are connecting to the correct network, it should require logon information; you never connect to an unsecure wireless network. In Windows you have the ability to share all of your computer’s files over a network so it might be a good idea to check you do not have your files set to be freely shared. (Newer versions of Windows it should ask you what kind of connection you are connect to when you connect and ‘public’ should be chosen.) Also, your anti-virus and firewall software should always be up to date when accessing public WiFi.